Unauthenticated user impersonation via trusted invalid JWT claims
Published May 20, 2022 · Updated Apr 23, 2025
Authentication bypass in affected Argo CD releases allows remote attackers to impersonate any user or role through a crafted JWT. When anonymous access is enabled, the API server accepts identity and role claims from a JWT that failed validation instead of discarding those claims. Anonymous access is disabled by default; exposed instances grant impersonators Argo CD privileges that can read, create, alter, or delete Kubernetes resources.
Summary
What happened
Authentication bypass in affected Argo CD releases allows remote attackers to impersonate any user or role through a crafted JWT. When anonymous access is enabled, the API server accepts identity and role claims from a JWT that failed validation instead of discarding those claims. Anonymous access is disabled by default; exposed instances grant impersonators Argo CD privileges that can read, create, alter, or delete Kubernetes resources.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-29165
- Published
- May 20, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 23, 2025
- Vendor
- Argo Project
- Product
- Argo CD
- Classifications
- CWE-287, CWE-290, CWE-200, T1078
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 20, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 23, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=>= 1.4.0, < 2.1.15
- Affected versionversion=>= 2.2.0, < 2.2.9
- Affected versionversion=>= 2.3.0, < 2.3.4
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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